How to Improve Customer Experience in eCommerce

The ecommerce business is now one of the most popular businesses. The e-commerce business market is extremely competitive. You will find millions of competitors in the e-commerce business field. So it is crucial to survive in the competition.

Only way to survive in this field is to provide high-quality products and deliver outstanding customer service. As a result, before jumping into the e-commerce business, you have to understand customers' requirements and how to improve customers' experience in e-commerce. 

It helps to attract new customers and keep hold of your existing customers. So, walk with us and get all the proven ideas on how to improve customer experience in ecommerce. 

What is Ecommerce Business? 

In the current world, e-commerce is one of the largest areas of the electronics industry. It is considered a form of retail industry. E-commerce is the shortest form of electronic commerce. 

It means buying and selling products or services on the  Internet. E-commerce is a business run by a company or individuals that makes money by providing services or selling goods online. 

It is a wide business in which any company can sell different types of accessories or services, such as housewares, software, skin care products, books, web design services, and more.

E-commerce can use different types of channels, such as websites or social media, to connect sellers and customers. Customers can also access online stores using their preferred devices. 

They can see the product's details and place their orders. Once their order is placed, the payment system allows them to exchange the services or products. 

After the successful transition, the buyer gets a confirmation email, and the seller ships the items. While shipping the items, sellers send a tracking number to the customers so that the customers can track the details of the products. 

Statistics show that approximately 2.14 billion people purchase services through e-commerce worldwide. According to Statista, the market size of e-commerce is $16.27 trillion in 2023, and the growth of the market will be shifted by $57.22 trillion by 2032.

What is Customer Experience in Ecommerce?

Customer experience is a very important term in e-commerce. So, in terms of an e-commerce business, customer experience should be the first thing that concerns you and should always be kept in mind. 

Customer experience is the customer's perception of their online interaction. It means the overall experience of a customer can be felt through the whole purchase process. Client experience management is very important for any ecommerce business.

We can divide the customer experience into three main categories according to their perception. 

Pre Purchase Experience

Pre-purchase is a stage of customer behavior where customers can evaluate and compare product alternatives before purchasing a product. In the e-commerce business, the pre-purchase experience is crucial. 

Basically, the pre-purchase experience begins when an individual notices your brand and checks all the details of your products or services. Before entering e-commerce, you have to learn in detail about customers' behaviors at this stage. 

In pre-purchase behaviors, customers can feel the need for any products or services and search for them. Then, the consumer looks for the product's brands, variations, quality, or alternatives. 

Purchase Experience

In e-commerce, the purchase experience is basically the consumer experience at the time of the actual purchase of any products or services. 

Purchase experience consists of several pieces of information, including product or service pricing, availability, shipping fees, exchanges, returns, company policies, etc. 

As an owner of an e-commerce business, you just have to ensure that the consumer can purchase according to their expectations.

Post Purchase Experience

Post-purchase customer experience is very important for any e-commerce business. If you think your duty is over when a customer completes a purchase, then you are wrong. 

It is just the beginning of your journey. After completing the first purchase of a consumer, you have to convince the consumer to buy more and more from your e-commerce site. 

The post-purchase experience dramatically improves customer loyalty. To enhance the customer's post-purchase experience, you have to stay connected with your regular existing customers. For example, you have to provide regular delivery updates, promotional offers, and more.

How to Improve Customer Experience in Ecommerce: 14 Ways 

How to improve customer experience in ecommerce is a major concern for those involved in the business.  Customer experience is something that you must pay attention to if you want to be successful in e-commerce. 

In today's world, e-commerce is one of the most popular retail sectors, and competition is extremely high. As a result, you have to ensure excellent customer experience if you want to survive. 

So stay with us and get all the proven strategies of how to improve customer experience in ecommerce.

1. Create User Friendly Ecommerce Website

One of the most certain ways to improve customer experience is to create a user-friendly e-commerce website. When customers visit an e-commerce site, they always look at how easily they can browse and navigate the web pages.

Your online store should be considered similar to the physical store. You should organize your online store according to service or product categories. This will help customers find their desired products and relevant products. 

One more important thing you should remember while designing your e-commerce site is to keep the search button highlighted so that consumers can easily find the products they are actually looking for. You can also use SEO strategy for ecommerce websites. Optimizing your website for a seamless user experience is essential. Regular web accessibility testing can help ensure that your site is inclusive and usable for all customers, including those with disabilities.

2. Personalize Customer Experience 

Personalization is another popular way to increase ecommerce customer experience. It is one of the most trendy strategies that can help provide a consistent customer experience. 

Personalization is a way to track consumer needs based on their recent searches on an e-commerce site and suggest the best products based on their search. It is called customer journey analysis. Statistics show that personalization can increase total sales by up to 15%. 

Here are some ways you can use it as a method of personalization.

• Use Real-Time Geo-Location To Reach Customers And Provide Clear Information
• Analysis of Customer's Products Or Service Browsing History
• Provide Details And Exact Information On Delivery Services And Shipping Prices
• Offer Different Types Of Coupons, Discounts, Ecommerce Shopping Cart, Etc
• Try To Converse With The Customers In Their Native Language 
• Offer The Consumer To Join Different Types Of Online Events

3. Make A Mobile Friendly Interface 

We live in the era of smartphones. Smartphones have brought the whole world into our hands. It would be a wise decision to encourage the ecommerce website builder to make your e-commerce website mobile-friendly. 

Different types of e-commerce website analysis have proven that almost 65% of traffic in e-commerce businesses comes from smartphone devices. 

Here are some tips to make a mobile-friendly e-commerce website.  

• Create an eye-catching and Simple Mobile Version To Operate It Smoothly
• Use Clear And Smaller Size Images And Videos For Better Speed
• Make Sure That All The Links And Buttons Are Working 

4. Get Live Chat Support 

Live chat is an amazing technology that can improve the e-commerce customer experience. It is a pop-up function where the consumer can communicate with ecommerce sellers through the e-commerce website. You can add the live chat support as a custom ecommerce solution.

It is a real-time messaging system between buyers and sellers. When you have a live chat system on your e-commerce site, customers can easily interact with the shoppers and get to know all their queries. It can increase ecommerce website development cost but is a proven way to boost sales. 

List of the benefits of live chat for ecommerce.

• Helps To Generate Leads
• Save Time For Both The Buyers And Sellers
• It Helps To Make Clear Communication
• Helps To Keep Existing Customers
• Build Trust In Consumers
• Help To Analyze Customers' Choice

5. Build A Community

It is crucial to build a community for your e-commerce business. Select a group of individuals who are your loyal customers and die-hard fans of your products. 

Then, you can influence them to advocate your products or brands. They can play an important role by giving positive feedback and suggestions to improve online shopping. You can use different types of social media platforms to build your community. 

To build a strong community, you have to set a goal and send emails to the people to draw more visitors. You can welcome your customers personally and can interact with them regularly. Always try to post meaningful content to attract customers.

6. Product Or Services Details In Brief

Customers want brief information about products or services. This will help them get a clear idea about the products they are looking to purchase. When customers get all the clear information, they are influenced to make more purchases. 

So you have to make sure that all the products on your website have brief information such as description, price, return policy, payment system, availability, reviews, and more.

7. Use High Quality Photos And Videos

Using high-quality images and videos can greatly improve customers' experience. Images and videos are the first things that a customer notices on an e-commerce site. 

High-quality images or videos can make a great impression on customers. So, you have to make sure the images and videos you have been using for your e-commerce site are attractive and eye-catching. 

However, using high-quality images and videos can take longer to load, which can negatively impact customers. You can use those types of images and videos that are clear enough and do not take much time to load on a website.

Here are some tricks you can use while creating photos and videos for e-commerce sites.

• Use Natural Light Because It Looks More Real 
• Always Try To Avoid Flash Off While Taking Photos
• Use A Tripod For Better Stability
• Ensure The Camera Lens Is Clean While Clicking Photos Or Videos
• Try To Avoid Digital Zoom

8. Display Customers Reviews

The most trustworthy way of providing the best eCommerce service is to show the customers reviews. Customer review is something that you must pay attention to if you want to enrich the customer's experience in e-commerce. 

Most consumers are willing to buy any products or services they purchase based on customer reviews. Shopify and Amazon are great examples for displaying customer reviews.

Here, we can see the advantage of having a customer review on an e-commerce site. 

• Increase Sales
• Boost Brand  Awareness
• Helps In Decision Making
• Products Validation And Information
• Increase Rating And Reputation
• Comparative Analysis

9. Do Faster Response

One of the best ways to gain trust and improve customer experience is to respond quickly. The more quickly you can solve customers' queries, the more trust you will gain, and customers will be more willing to buy from your e-commerce site. 

Fast response not only increases customer satisfaction but also builds your business reputation and consumer retention rate.

As an e-commerce business owner, you should ensure that your active ecommerce website's response time is extremely high.

10. Create An Amazing Unboxing

Unboxing basically means the act of unpacking the purchased products. In the era of online shopping, a great unboxing experience is something that a customer must remember. 

When a customer places an order, and the moment they get the delivery, the unboxing is something that is to be celebrated. So, if you do great unboxing rather than just a regular delivery, the experience will be memorable, especially the time spent with customers. 

Unboxing is an experience in which the customer is not unboxing; it is a performance. 

Now, let's talk about the benefits of a great unboxing. 

• Help To Drive Customers' Loyalty
• Create A Great Impression
• Increase Social Media Marketing
• Boost Credibility
• Help To Build Trustworthy Brands
• Engage New Customers
• Helps To Get Positive And Excellent Customer Reviews

11. Provide Surprise Gift

Who doesn't like surprise gifts? Every person loves to get a surprise gift. So when any customers purchase anything, try to give them a surprise gift. It makes your customer happy and satisfied. 

Your surprise gift could be anything; it doesn't need to be very expensive. Surprise gifts act like small things with a big impact. When any customers get any surprise without any cost, it helps them to come back to you and shop more and more. 

Suppose a customer has ordered a watch, and you can send him an extra battery for the watch. It creates a big positive impact on customers' minds and enhances customer experience.

12. Make Fast Delivery Process

Fast delivery is a key term in any e-commerce business. If you own an e-commerce business, you need to ensure an efficient and consistent delivery process. 

To provide hassle-free, fast delivery services, you need to monitor your delivery process regularly. The more you improve the process, the more customer satisfaction you can earn. 

Here are some effective ways to improve the delivery process in ecommerce, followed by top ecommerce sites.

• Smartly Distribute And Adjust Your Inventory
• Depend On Third-Party Partnership
• Set A Minimum Shipping Schedule
• Automate Your Order Loading, Picking And Unloading System
• Allows Multiple Shipping Locations
• Make Better Customer Lifetime Value

13. Allow Multiple Payment Option 

Payment systems have a large impact on your ecommerce startup business. After choosing the products or services, customers look for the payment system. If the payment process is easy and smooth, customers can enjoy their shopping. 

For these, you should ensure multiple payment systems. Multiple payment systems are highly recommended for the e-commerce business, especially for shipping from overseas. 

Suppose a customer visits your e-commerce webshop platform and selects several items for purchase, but when they look for a payment option, they do not find the payment system they would prefer. Then, the customer will leave your site and never visit it again. 

It's a great loss for any e-commerce business holder. So, when creating an e-commerce website, you have to make sure it has multiple payment systems that work effectively. 

List of some e-commerce payment methods that customers prefer. 

• Debit Card
• Credit Card
• Prepaid Card
• Bank Transfer
• Ewallet
• Gift Card
• Paypal
• Cryptocurrency
• Direct Deposit
• Cash On Delivery

14. Offer A Clear Return System

A clear return policy is an important integrated part of eCommerce shopping. It plays a crucial role in increasing customer loyalty and satisfaction. On the other hand, a poor return policy dramatically reduces customer satisfaction and reduces sales. 

Along with these, poor return policy is a major reason for losing customers in commerce. As we know, virtual shopping and online shopping are totally different. 

In virtual shopping, a customer is able to see the product live and try it out, but in online shopping, they have to choose or select the products based on description, measurements, or images. 

So, customers may not like the product after they receive the delivery. In that situation, customers want a seamless return or exchange policy. 

If they can return or exchange the products without any trouble, they will prefer your e-commerce site for their next shopping trip. This is how a clear return policy helps to increase customer experience in e-commerce. It should be included in your ecommerce business plan. 

Final Thought

Every business is unique, but almost all businesses have a certain goal: to provide the best customer experience and maximize revenue. Maximum revenue is only possible when sales are high. Higher sales are directly connected to customer satisfaction. Hopefully, you have understood our strategies and learned how to improve customer experience in ecommerce. So, apply the technology to improve customer experience and be successful in the e-commerce business.